Reform All Categorical Programs

Kudos to David Hornbeck and members of the Commission on Chapter 1
for bold plans to improve the learning of economically disadvantaged
students. We think, however, the independent commission framed its work
too narrowly. There is every reason--political, economic, scientific,
and professional--in 1993 to work for broad reformation of all
categorical school programs. We believe the panel made a major mistake
by excluding from its proposals categorical programs other than Chapter
1, such as programs for migrant workers' children, handicapped
children, neglected and delinquent children, limited-English-proficient
children, and Native American children. (See Education Week, Dec. 16,
1992.)

Narrowly framed categorical programs designated to serve only
specific categories of students cause the disjointedness and
inefficiency that plague schools as they attempt to meet legislative
mandates. This problem is particularly serious in urban schools with
high concentrations of economically disadvantaged students. Although
the Chapter 1 commission recognized that the "school is the primary
unit in need of change and improvement,'' panel members chose not to
say how Chapter 1 reform, as they envision it, will be carried out in
isolation from other categorical programs.

Categorical programs have become very large and expensive--and an
administrative nightmare for school administrators and teachers. It is
not unusual to find schools in which over 50 percent of students are
separated in "pullout'' programs from the mainstream and from one
another. Classrooms become something like Grand Central Station and
teachers turn into dispatchers. According to one report, 25 percent of
New York City public school expenditures were tied to special
education. Add the costs of other categorical programs and we're
dealing with what the late Sen. Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois called
"real money.''

On the scientific side, a study of placement practices in the
schools by a panel created by the National Academy of Sciences is of
great importance. The panel reported that there is little empirical
justification for categorical labeling that differentiates mildly
mentally retarded children from other children with academic
difficulties; and, perhaps more importantly, it said that similar
instructional processes appear to be effective with educable mentally
retarded, learning-disabled, and compensatory-educational populations,
including Chapter 1.

It is noteworthy that so-called "learning disabled'' children, a
special-education category, now constitute more than half of the
special-education population in the nation's public schools. The
researcher Joe Jenkins at the University of Washington reports a
virtually total "overlap'' in characteristics of Chapter 1 and
learning-disabled student populations. Richard Allington at the State
University of New York at Albany reports that students in categorical
programs actually receive less instruction in special support programs
designed to provide intensive instructional support, such as Chapter 1
and learning-disabled, or L.D., programs. In what we have called the
"Matthew effect,'' these students tend to fall further and further
behind students in the mainstream.

School psychologists in many school districts are very heavily
occupied in psychometrics just to allocate children to categorical
programs. This often involves waiting until discrepancies between
"expectations'' and actual achievements of students are large enough to
warrant a given categorical label for placement and/or services. Such
pseudoscientific procedures involve calculating "points'' generated out
of test results to suggest that a child needs intensive help. All of
this "micromanaging on the input side'' of meaningless boundaries is
wasteful and unjustified. Indeed, much of it may be harmful in that it
involves delays in providing help to children at early stages of their
studies. It preoccupies school staff members with the tasks of
justifying eligibility for services and precludes broader professional
services, which they could provide. In fact, the preoccupation with
eligibility certification precludes the delivery of a broader vision of
improvement.

It is true, of course, that legislators can make provisions in law
and in funding systems in almost any fashion. But it is the job of
educators to help frame the concerns of public policymakers so that we
don't have disarrayed programs at the school level.

Research and practical experience indicate that categorical school
programs as they are currently implemented in schools are in disorder.
They cause extreme disjointedness in schools. Further aggravation is
provided by state and federal monitoring activities that are more
oriented to processes than to the substance of teaching and learning.
Literally, monitors seem more interested in what they find in filing
cabinets (Did the parents approve, in writing, before the testing of
their child began?) than in what goes on in classrooms.

By noting these problems, we suggest that the strategies for making
schools work for children in poverty proposed by the independent
commission will, in fact, continue to cause the kinds of disjointedness
that have failed to serve the many children presently in all kinds of
categorical programs, including Chapter 1. We agree with Mr. Hornbeck
and other commission members that aggressive teaching, higher
expectations, and broader curricular approaches are needed by many
students presently being served by Chapter 1 programs and, we add, by
other specially designed entitlement programs.

In thinking about a solution, the quite simple proposal by Carl
Bereiter at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education may be
useful. He stated: "For any sort of learning, from swimming to reading,
some children learn with almost no help and other children need a great
deal of help. Children whom we have labeled educationally disadvantaged
are typically children who need more than ordinary amounts of help with
academic learning. Why they need help is open to all sorts of
explanations. But suppose that, instead of reopening that issue, we
simply accept the fact that youngsters vary greatly in how much help
they need and why.''

In addition, the problem of Chapter 1 must be viewed in the context
of proposed radical reforms in educational organization. The worrisome
difficulties of Chapter 1 identified by the commission and further
elaborated here may be part of a larger
problem--"intergovernmentalism''--making more levels and parts of
government responsible for domestic affairs, although common sense says
that when all are nominally responsible, none is truly responsible. On
this subject, John Kincaid of the University of Washington concluded:
"Virtually all of the factors most associated with academically
effective education are school- and neighborhood-based. Yet, we have
shifted more control and financing of education to state and national
institutions.'' Our own reviews of research literature certainly
confirm this view.

The commission links its ideas for revision in Chapter 1 to the
integration of schools with other public agencies, such as health and
welfare. We agree that such broader integration approaches are
desirable. But schools cannot lead in these broad services unless and
until the services are integrated in the schools' own internal
operations.

In sum, we believe it is a mistake to prepare revised legislation
and complex accountability procedures in just the Chapter 1 framework
alone. There are no remaining rewards in school practices that make
categorical distinctions that have no merit. It is time to make
organizational and curricular changes that reform all categorical
programs in ways that involve the regular or general education programs
as well. We believe that reframing the entire set of categorical
programs, all the way from legislative and regulatory levels down to
classrooms and individual students, is long overdue.

Perhaps the Commission on Chapter 1's report can be taken as the
first step toward broader deliberation and reform. We are among those
ready to join in such an effort.

Margaret C. Wang is director of the Center for Research in Human
Development at Temple University and director of the National Center on
Education in the Inner Cities. Maynard C. Reynolds is a professor
emeritus of educational psychology at the University of Minnesota and a
senior research associate at the Temple University center. Herbert J.
Walberg is a research professor of education at the University of
Illinois at Chicago.

Vol. 12, Issue 26, Page 64

Published in Print: March 24, 1993, as Reform All Categorical Programs

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